It all starts with behavior!

First things first. The beginning of the year is (or at least should be) about establishing behavioral expectations. You can't teach unless students are behaving and ready to learn. Now that we are about to start our fifth week of school we are FINALLY learning real things. That sentence made me chuckle a little because in the three years that I taught kindergarten, I didn't feel that I really taught anything until about November, maybe even January. First grade is really the BEST grade! Now how did we get to the teaching and learning?

You'll see these five sections in this blog post.
#1. My students are awesome
#2 NO Clip Charts
#3 Behavior Expectations
#4 Fun Friday
#5 Routines

#1 My students are awesome.

I'm lucky to have a pretty good group of sweet kids but of course I have some boys, oh 6-7 year old boys...

#2 NO Clip Charts

You won't see any clip charts or colored card pocket charts in our room. I still remember when I was in second grade. My friend was talking to me when we weren't supposed to be talking. When I told her to be quiet, our teacher pulled both of our cards from green to yellow! It was one of the only times I had ever gotten into trouble in school and it scarred me so much that I remember that moment to this day. Public charts are humiliating and are more about the teacher telling the student how they were acting, I use a better system now!
In my first two years of teaching, I used a clip chart. Students started the day on green and either moved up to purple or down to yellow or red . Then, I'm not quite sure how the change came about. I believe it was through discussions with some of my awesome co-workers about how annoyed we were with it. We constantly had kids asking "Am I on green?" "Why can't I move up to purple?" "What, I'm on yellow, What did I do?". The clip charts were not working and were almost more of a distraction than a help.

2014, the last days of using that clip chart in my classroom. As you see from my students faces, it wasn't the best!

Many of us decided to get rid of those color clip charts and adapt it to have students reflect on their own behavior. This is amazing and works so well! My awesome "Teacher of the Year"  first grade teacher neighbor had a sub the other day. The sub came to my room at recess and asked about the behavior chart. She didn't see a clip chart or card pulling system anywhere but the students had to color a behavior chart at the end of the day. I explained our system to her and she was so excited! She had just come from four weeks of a long term sub position in a first grade class at a another school that still uses the colored clip charts. She loved our student reflection system so much that she asked me to e-mail her what we do so she can share it with teachers at that other school. Ah, another reason why I am starting my teaching blog today! It's fun to share ideas that work!

Here's the behavior chart I use in my classroom. I made one without my name and the dates for sale on Teachers Pay Teachers for $1.

Behavior Chart Example

Behavior Chart Teachers Pay Teachers

Weekly Behavior Chart

 At the end of the day before students pack up I ask students to reflect on their day using that behavior chart.
This behavior chart is a form of communication between students, teacher and parents.

-The student decides how their day went by coloring a star, happy face, neutral face or sad face.
-The teacher (that's me) will mark whether I agree or disagree by looking at my clipboard and having a brief discussion with the student. We've already discussed poor behavior earlier in the day if it happened, so I'll just say "Remember this...I disagree with your choice because of that. Tomorrow will be better!" I'll often write a number to correspond with the comments below.
-The parents/guardians will initial each day after discussing behavior with their child.

Students use our behavioral expectations to base their decisions on. The next section, #3 is all about behavioral expectations. I always remind students that I don't follow them around all day so I don't know exactly what they did all day. Only they know, they are with themselves all day, "You are the expert on you!". My clipboard is used to keep track of noteworthy behaviors throughout the day, this private clipboard system replaced my public colored clip chart. I use the clipboard when I am checking students behavior charts to remind me of what happened during the day, positive and negative behaviors! It's important to send positive notes too!

Here's a page that goes in their B.E.E. binder to explain to parents and students what the symbols on the chart mean. Behavior Chart Explanation for parents and students   The B.E.E. binder is their homework binder, Here's a post I wrote about our homework binders and what is in them and where we found most of the tools: Homework Binders Post

#3 Behavior Expectations

I use a Good Choices/Poor Choices Sort, CKH, and the STAR Acronym to help students decide what to color on their behavior chart. It sounds like a lot but it's enough to make them understand and these help set behavior expectations well.

*Good Choices/Poor Choices Sort
The kindergarten and first grade teachers at my school use this Good Choices/ Poor Choices Sort freebie every year, at the beginning of the year and throughout the year. It's a great resource for our age group and our 95% ESL population.  I just downloaded it for free from this website. https://mrsriccaskindergarten.blogspot.com/2012/08/behavior-picture-sort-freebie.html and here's the PDF. Good Choices/Poor Choices Freebie from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten.

Good/Poor Choices Sort and Social Contract 

I use this a lot in the beginning of the year and when students are coloring their Behavior Chart at the end of the day. I'll say "When you are coloring your behavior chart, think about the choices you've made today, if you've made some poor choices you probably shouldn't color a happy face or a star".

*Capturing Kids Hearts-CKH
I need to be careful here because this is a training that my entire charter school district sends every teacher to. It a wonderful system that truly Captures Kids Hearts and reminds you to make those connections with kids and help them take ownership of the behavior in the classroom. Here's a link to their website, go to the training if you can, it's amazing!
http://flippengroup.com/education/capturing-kids-hearts/
I hope I don't get in trouble for sharing my favorite parts of their training on-line for anyone to see. Although, my brief explanation will not be enough, you'll need the three day training for more information and exactly how to implement it.
Social Contract- we establish behavior expectations together during the first week of school by making a Social Contract, then students sign the contract to say that they agree to follow that.

Checks-students have a hand motion that they can use to remind other students to follow the Social Contract. I LOVE this because this would have saved second grade me from getting my card changed to yellow, I could have checked my friend with a hand motion instead of using words to remind her to be quiet and we probably never would have had our cards changed to yellow! Checks also cut down on the nagging I have to do- I often say, "Check your friends so they don't have to get consequences".
Fouls-Another hand motion that students use to tell other students that they hurt their feelings. If someone fouls you, you need to tell them two nice put ups. I always remind students who say "But I didn't do anything" that you can't tell others how they feel so please give two put ups. The CKH training will help give you more strategies for teaching students to use these motions. Fouls really minimize the tattling first grade teachers used to have to hear before this amazing behavioral system.
CKH is awesome and it's set up for all grades K-12! I hope this information isn't infringing on their copyrights but instead inspires you to get the full training!



*STAR Acronym
This acronym comes from book Teach Like A Champion by Doug Lemov. These are behavioral guidelines for students that help establish behaviors that will help all students in our class learn.
I adapted the acronym slightly for my classroom.
S-sit in your own space
T-track the speaker
A-ask and answer questions
R-respect those around you
Here's a chant I made up to go along with the acronym.
"I'm a star student! I Sit in my own space to give others room to learn! I Track the speaker with my laser eyes to show I'm listening. I listen to the speaker so I can Ask and answer questions that will help me learn. And most of all, I Respect those around me by treating others how I'd like to be treated. I'm a star student, you're a star student, we are all star students!"
Star Student Chant in Stars Here's a link to get the chant written on stars. The posters with student pictures are unavailable they passed down to me from an amazing co-worker!



If students are following all of STAR behavioral expectations that's when they get to color the star on their behavior chart.

# 4 Fun Friday

We need a time for students who earned rewards to get those and a time for students who choose to receive consequences to have their consequences as well. Yes, students choose their consequence, I do not give consequences. "If you choose to make poor choices or not follow our Social Contract you've chosen a consequence.". That's just how it goes.

I am lucky to work with seven other first grade teachers, our elementary school is huge! We work together to give our first grade students Fun Friday. We have six rooms with fun activities such as Bingo, art, Legos, movie, STEM activities and computers. We have two classrooms for students who need to miss out on the fun. One of these rooms is for finishing classwork or homework and the other room is for students who made poor choices and need to reflect on their behavior. In that room students write down what they can do better to get to attend Fun Friday the next week. The teacher who runs this room likes it because eventually his room is empty and he gets to get prep work done. Which means Fun Friday and our other behavior systems seem to work.

I like Fun Friday because it allows me to give consequences and not take away recess. I struggle with taking away recess because every human needs a break and the students (*clears throat* often the 6-7 year old boys...) who are earning the consequences are the ones who need recess the most! I do, however, use recess time to have brief private conversations about how to fix behavior. Sometimes students need to practice doing a routine correctly. This ends up taking away no more than half of the 15 minute recess. The private conversations work so much better than the public shaming of the behavior clip charts!

5. Routines

Routines, routines, routines. If students have a clear expectation of what they are supposed to be doing at a certain times of the day, behavior as a whole is much better. We spent the first weeks of school practicing the correct way to do everything from coming in in the morning, to the noise level during writer's workshop, or how to walk and chant while we get out our math books and much more. Learning the expectations for certain times of the day and practicing them helps me determine whether students are defiant (choosing not to listen) or confused. With many ESL students in my class, I've realized that a quick reminder of expectations will get most students doing the routines correctly. Those defiant students who know what they are supposed to be doing but choose not to, are the ones who should be missing Fun Friday.
I learned a lot about setting behavior expectations and how to determine defiance versus ignorance from the book Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov. Here's a link to FREE notes I took while re-reading Teach Like a Champion after my second year of teaching. If you want to improve as a teacher, read these notes and the book!
Teach Like a Champion Notes



It all starts with behavior! I hope you've enjoyed this long post. First year teacher me would have LOVED to read this to prevent all the tears and drama with clip charts but it just shows what I've learned in 4+ years of teaching! I love the environment this behavior system sets. I try to remind myself of something I read in Teach Like a Champion. If something the students are doing is making you angry or annoyed, you haven't taught that expectation well enough. Making sure 100% of the students are following your expectations and practicing the expectation again until it's right, really works. I want to be a happy teacher that inspires deep thinking and a love for learning, not an angry nagger. Most moments these days, I feel like the happy teacher and I'm ready for more real learning to start happening in our fun first grade room!  :)